Entrepreneurship

I have a friend who's been retired for a few years now, although he must be in his early 70s. He worked as an advisor to companies and investors investing in China. He did very well, managed to earn a lot of money, and then invested in real estate in Europe. Then he moved to the United States, and although he had money, he couldn't resist investing in real estate there, which has done very well for him.

When I started going to China because I thought the country would develop well and a business school could be a great help, I thought of launching it in Beijing. I wasn't familiar with China. I contacted the Spanish ambassador, who thought my idea was impossible, but he explained to me that a few, very few, Spanish companies had set up a branch in Beijing and that there were also some well-established European companies, and he mentioned Bayer to me.

Opening a chain of stores in Beijing helped me apply what I teach in class.

I located Bayer and went there asking for the big boss. When I explained my ideas, he saw a very suitable topic and offered me the use of a large room on Saturdays and Sundays. I thought about launching a program I had invented in Spain when IESE opened its Madrid campus, the executive master's program. It's a program for executives who already have years of experience (they're around 30 years old and have been working in companies for about 10 years). I got a few professors from different European and American schools, but good friends of mine, to accept the idea of ​​teaching weekend classes in Beijing. My friend, who is currently buying real estate in the US, helped me find two or three people to provide logistical support for the program. Little by little, we enlisted the help of a Spanish engineering firm, Idom, to provide a good building in Beijing.

I had to go to Beijing frequently, teach classes, and above all, ensure we brought in excellent Chinese managers. Of course, they had to be able to speak English, because most of the teachers didn't speak Chinese.

My good friend, who now lives in the US, said to me, "Why don't you start a business here?" Having seen the shops in the best areas of Beijing, I had the idea of ​​opening a store selling European beds and bedroom textiles. The store imported things from Europe. It went extraordinarily well, and we opened eight more stores, with the same products, throughout the sprawling city of Beijing.

Things were going very well, and I said to myself, "You've come here to launch an excellent business school, not a retail store." With my friend's help, I sold the business quickly and very well and continued with my school, which I immediately launched in Shanghai, then in Shenzhen, Accra (in Ghana), and Zurich (in Switzerland). But as a professor of entrepreneurship, the subject helped me successfully apply what I teach in class.